The Receptionist

the receptionist was the same as before. But today they had forgotten her. She was a woman in her mid fifties that held her age well; slightly over weight, with hair dyed frizzy purple/auburn that deeply needed a habit breaking beauty tip refresher.

She was slightly overworked. Not by any malice on the part of the management of the sperm-bank. In fact they loved her. If they'd not felt awkward giving her the necessary hair tip, they would have. But not knowing what style she was going for they each individually thought it best to let her be, to be sure they didn't offend her.

She was a good worker, and for many years handled the stream of incoming donors in a way that mad the clinic run very smoothly. This offset the oddity of her over processed hair,outdated glasses, and lip stick that always was the exact shade of her purleish auburn highlights. If they didn't know her they would have thought her a bit ill.

And without gossiping to each other unprofessionally ever, they all individually did think that the routine and stability of the job held her together over the years.

the receptionist saw the group from the bus come in all at once. Suddenly the room was busy.

And she thought to herself, "this is why I'm tired all day", ever since people had to be screened to get in. And were brought in by groups of one to two hundred at a time; rather than a manageable steady stream.

Since the security issue due to this clinic being added to the genocidal target list; sh would have her memory wiped at th end of her work day. This was so that she would not be a kidnapping target in the developing war's pan-temporal diaspora.

Illian and his father were among the people she processes with less and less personal charm since now people arrived several hundred at a time once or twice at day, rather than on their own as had been the usual way.

As far as the memory wipe: It was just like trying to breath after being awake on a respirator then given drugs to forget the trauma of it; figuratively After the surgery you can't remember the surgery you were needing to be awake for.

She would feel tired, now that her memory was wiped, but still tired from the work.
Soon after eating take out that got emptied and then joined the piles her children were to inconsiderate to dispose of for there hard working mother: She would fall asleep either on her couch, the floor in her bedroom, with her kids, or perhaps make it out of the shower and into her own bed.

All after dropping the boxes, barely folded shut that she ritually picked up after work everyday.

And although she was screened by the local temporal security bureaucracies for not having been photographed too much, before she was hired- today she was digitally snapped in the driveway of the of the fast food chain.

She was picked because she was publicly seen before as as the receptionist, and although she had been fired on record, clearly had not looked for another job, and held the same hours and schedule with regard to the long standing daily habits in her life, which included being photographed carrying the take out home.

Anger Leaves an Echo

Billy heard the racket through his wall.
"Goddamnit, He muttered to himself: 'every ross clot night', the oder of it wrang in his nostils again. They had fallen asleep and the net radio they had blaring was echoing itself loudly.
"I can't fucking sleep, and I can't fucking think. Turn off your gaddamn music ass holes!" He yelled in vain at the wall. He hit the wall with a clinched and fist backed pinkie and palm base.

Crack!!! His nerves split with the plaster. His family barely afforded food, let and now he needed to find some plaster to keep his room from looking ghetto.

And still the raggae overlayed uninteligibly like a screechless reverb. Billy's "ijuice" look alike was being blasted out even with the speakers nestled in his ear canals'.

"I have fucking homework to do", He avoid going over to the door cause that would cause a fight that his father would have to solve the nasty way.

A break between songs provided a moment of clarity while the first round of the song started.
But before the second round ended an acustic ballad rolled out overlaying the raggaeton that still has two minutes left in the long play.

"Fuck!!! These assholes can't be quiet even hen they are sleeping. Fucking 'guai-ass drug addicted fallen angel Amish mother fuckers, learn how to use a fucking computer before you steal one. Freck! Keep it long enough to use the mother fucker!!", he yelled knowing they were too asleep to hear him yelling. And if they were awake-if you can call it that; they noise was way louder than him.

He flipped open his mother's cellie, "Non-emergency" he told the voice prompt in the Kreckit system. "I did not understand the request, did you say Donald Glasko?", the phone responded.

The echo of the dou tracks had become up tempo: The resulting 8:8 crashed against his aching booked out eyeballs as if the singing backing up itself was fast fucking to the right side hip like in Clockworks time @ 16:16 like 4th annual finally; when it should just be a Friday night dancing Sunday school teacher dancing for innocent enough fun in her blouse and skirt.

A moment of clarity came as one song broke the mood at its finish, but the new tangent rolled in out of the fadeaway creating chaos from organisation.

Those aging Amish cats were vibrating somewere between full Orange alert and and the Penn Wood version of 'City of God's Rush'.

"Did you say Donald Glasko? is this correct?"

"No I did not say Danold Glasko", he thought to himself and a commercial echoed a netradio plug in stereo.

"You can sign up today for rewarding customer service at no charge compliments of ...."

Now three things rambled in his head, "I! DID! NOT SAY! FRECKING! DONALD! FUCKING! PUNTAECLOT! GLASKO!, son of a frosted' ross in Detroit!!!

He hung up and dialed nine one one.

And immediately the second player glitched while one kept playing ,"Call on Ja and he'll come right over, and you'll never never Die, all you have to do is praise the most high and He'll come right over."

The opporators voice came on: "911 emergency fire, police and medical: Mr. Glasko did you say your son was lost in Detroit?"

"No, how did you here that? I hadn't dialed yet, and my last name is not Glasko. This is the emergency line sir; what is the nature of the emergency?"

"My neighbors are High."

"That is not an emergency, let me connect you with the nonemergecy police number in Detroit, this line is for Sea Gate Falls please hold!"

"I! AM ! IN! SEA GATE FALL'! FRECKIN! OREGON!! AND MY NEIGHBORS WON'T TURN OFF ONE PLAYER ON THEIR GODBLESSIT MACHINE, CAUSE THEY HAVE ALL PAST OUT--WAIT.", a moment of clarity hit him, aftertwisting its way between the rain drops of sound coming from the doubled streamed netradio: He hung up and dialed back.

"911 emergency, police fire and medical, what is the nature of the emergency?"

"There seems to be smoke coming though the wall, there is a crack in the plaster... but the room is smokey..."

Where is the smoke coming from?"

"Coming from the apartment next door. they are there. They have there music on, but I can't get them to come to the door."

"Are you on a cell phone?"

"Yes why?"

"Get out of their. Is anyone else with you? and what is the address?"

"Unt, zero, ichi, ichi, soust Abandoned Blvd. Place NNE. Apt M"

The opporator repeated the address, "...doned Blvd. Place WNE Apt M. Is that correct?"

"NNE not WNE"

"NNE", she replied.

"Yes"

"?What letter is the appartment that seems to be....", he interupted her question with the answer--"N. Apartment N."

The Fire Department arrived at apartment N. They were going to find no smoke, or fire.
But the noise polution was enough to raise an eyebrow of alarm, and the firedeptment kicked the door in only to greet the scenario inside.

The boy knew noone would steal anything in front of the firefighters', so he let the door unlocked with a note on taped to the table asking them to lock the doorknob behind them.

A female firefighter plucked his "iberry" from his room where they found the crack between apartments M and N. She liked its cidar color. She thought that nearly getting burned to death every couple days made up kharmically for her kliptomania. She didn't quite grasp the idea of trying to not create kharma good or bad. And rather do the right thing because its right.



Forty and some years later, according to the time line of the life span of a Doug Fir living on the side of a hill in its grove in any forest- the neighborhood had gone though some seasons of change. But unlike the nearby firs’ it shed more than coned seeds and needles.

Buildings along Abandoned Blvd were left dusty, then renovated, then left dusty again. It shed families and economic ethnocentricities like leaves turning colors on a maple in fall season after less predictably algorithmic monetary season. This syncopation was broader than a solitary year: Each one of its seasons lasted eight to ten years here under the light of the nearby economic sun called California.

It was nearly fall according to the weather the birds and the trees; but in the life span of a neighborhood it was the spring time of this minor hood in SGF. Its haunted corners were being swept out and painted; corners and corners of buildings were being reshaped in a way similar to what the coenobita (hermit crabs) of the coast of Sea Gate Falls were also doing in the abandoned columella of vacant mollusk shells that waif in the hour off moon tide of the resulting ocean floor.

Ron Glenco is a leaf about to bud in the life cycle of the neighborhood. He was actually grafting in from Detroit by coincidence.

He stood watching the fireplace burn old cherry wood steps while his iConnect buzzed in his pocket. The fire cut a vertical breakaway in another pine plank he just laid down moments before ….

His display was not set up yet on the phone he’d bought off the ‘new-to-you’ url that everyone else was about to abandon for a now’er pasture in order to graze in the wheat grass/germ shot fields of the technologically hip.

The return display wasn’t set to him yet, and the caller might not wait until his voice mail came on.

The phone call was missed while fumbling though his receipts wadding up his right pocket and inner pockets.

He decided to change the display name then:
He hit the image of the access key. He felt the impression it simulates for the benefit of the blind user, and the sound of angel chimes it made after the “cherp” “Welcome to f(x) phones so economically benevolent we named them after locus, because everybody has at least one” well it didn’t say that exactly, but you know the brand now. “Welcome to F(x) Mr. Ronald Franklyn Glenco.

It seems that the sender has already changed it for me. He thought to himself without directly thinking it out in nouns, verbs, and sentence fragments.

The sun started coming in heavy in the bay window he’d replaced. He kept scooting to the left to get away from the bright settling sun that shined through the window he had re-exposed during the renovation project. This building had once been a single quadroplex separated from the other groups of units in the immediate area. And the seller had split it back into its original zoning.

There were so many details. The M was still on the doorway leading to the room with this fireplace he sat in front of.

The sun kept creeping into the afternoon windows of Drs.’ M & K Olson Blvd. That had been renamed after the twin ambassadors from the then well used Abandoned Blvd. 40 years earlier. A name change which had hurt most of all a niche art supply store that survived due to the unintended charm of being an art related business thriving in subtlety under the ol’ Abandoned Blvd street address. With the name change comes renovation and most of the old residents were eventually priced out of the neighborhood for smarter, more generic pastures to walk our food stamp cards to the troft in.

Ronald; on the other hand; is kharmicless in the battle between good/evil and just plan being over gentrification and a neighborhoods mini renaissances’.

He simply bought an affordable place to live in an area he likes, with enough rooms for housemates to make the mortgage payment and also host a small hostel in the lower two levels in the future.

Ron kept burning stuff. Not all if it legal, but flammable enough to burn long and heat the room while he watched the flames that never ceased to memorize him since he could remember. And the sun kept creeping it bright light through the window into his eyes.

The window was expensive. He knew why it was covered up by whatever management company that had decided it was more expensive than it was worth. But to a home owner it was a find. Except for the nearly wall size view of the party store across the street and the loud chatter from the Green Peace office next to it.

As his ear-crack buzzed again in his pocket, the notion of the GP having a hostel across from it would insure his success if he made beds available for good people to turn it in exchange for a place to sleep and be addressed at. He flipped open the locus converted iCrack to see who sent him a….

The sun lost its intensity while he was waiting for the fortysomething fembot to arrive and make good on her intentions and texts, and he continued brushing out details in the woodwork.

He was making progress on the wood work; but the fembot wasn’t making progress on arriving. He’d accidentally turned off his phone while checking it to see what she was saying. After slipping it back into his pocket the room took on a silence it handn’t had in many years. After shedding its people, furniture that vibrated Swedish and Shiatsu massages into backs and necks that were connect to heads relaxing in surround sound, and then HD, and its animal inhabitants were 86ed by natural causes or some other kind of displacement, the quiet seemed to leave room for everything else that was there. Every echo, every thought, every feeling has a place it occurred in. Every corner o the building (shadowed or light) had a moment hidden in it under all the noise of life. Life now removed. And as the fire started to die down, and even its red and yellow pop and crackle took a back seat to the quiet so still that even the resenant ring we often hear in our ears seemed to give up imposing on conciousness.

Clear as a bell in the wind blowing in your direction he thought he heard him.
“Ronald! Franklyn! Glenco!”, he thought it was angry at him.
“You left a son named Ross in Detroit”.

Ron had had sex with a few women there. He’d used a condem each time and had felt the IUD in each of there curvexs’. Although the IUD could have torn the condem, he knew pregnancy was unlikely. But he was involved in the big brother program there.
In the dark his superstition took a hold of him a chill went from his rib cage to his spine.